Eradicating Ecocide: a planetary movement run by women

You can sign the Eradicating Ecocide letter from women to world leaders here.

Demented bunnyhuggers again, you may be thinking.

Right.

On a planet which is rapidly heading toward climate catastrophe, we continue to pour toxic emissions into the atmosphere, poison the ground, ignore the best science on the greenhouse effect (that’s when we’re not actually spewing the nonsense generated by a well-orchestrated denial campaign), and generally carry on as if there’s no tomorrow, a state of affairs (no tomorrow) which is becoming increasingly likely.

In South Africa, we have the world’s largest single point emitter of greenhouse gases (the Sasol plant at Secunda), we live in a country which is predicted to experience approximately double the temperature rise the rest of the world will experience, we are already running into electricity and water quality and supply problems, and what are we doing about it? Braai-ing. And if Shell has their way, fracking too. If you’ve got a bit of clean groundwater left in a fragile eco-system, just poison it now, then you won’t have to worry about it in the future.

This is insanity. Obtaining World Bank loans to build more coal plants was insanity. Not investing heavily in renewables is insanity. Not standing our ground and demanding that the big industrial nations curb greenhouse emissions is insanity. Not thoroughly investigating fast breeder reactor technology is insanity. Providing cheap power to huge industrial customers while poor South Africans cannot afford the ever-rising cost domestic tariffs is insanity. Even considering risking fracking the Karoo (and releasing methane, one of the most potent greenhouse gases around) is insanity. Buying the twaddle spouted by climate deniers while the science and the weather are telling us something very different is insanity. Pretending that this will create jobs is insanity. What it does is outsources those jobs to big companies, and often other countries, lines the pockets of fatcat politicians, and destroys the quality of life for communities unlucky enough to live near big polluters.

Do you know how to spell insanity? There are a few alternative spellings. G-r-e-e-d. A-p-a-t-h-y. D-e-n-i-a-l. How do you spell it?